D&D General The Tyranny of Rarity

[DND_Reborn]

I wonder if the degree of importance of non-humans is related to the literature/video games/movies each person likes. For the humans only among those I like are the Black Company, Dread Empire, Black Cauldron, Conan, and King Arthur are pretty much all human and Fafhrd&Mouser and Dying Earth seem pretty close. Tolkien is obviously demi-human focussed and Percy Jackson and the related series add a few more among the humans and demi-gods. The Garrett Chronicles on the other hand are very not mostly human.

Oh, I am sure for many of us this is where we get our preferences from.

So a human world feels just fine as fantasy to me. One with dragon born still feels strange to me though.

Yeah, me too.

 

[DND_Reborn]

strange is good thoúght closer to wonder and all.

Or it makes you feel uncomfortable and you don't like it.

Might be good for some, probably not for others.

 

[hawkeyefan]

For now...until that first batch dies off or gets cycled through one by one leading to another half-dozen potential requests for something oddball that wasn't played in the first batch. Five players can, over the course of some low-level adventures, quite easily each go through several characters.

I never assume a player will keep the same character for the campaign's duration; be it due to in-game lethality or other career-ending occurrences or out-of-game player boredom/dissatisfaction with the character and-or just wanting to play something different.

And you think that if you allow a few things, then it opens the floodgates for all kinds of other things? And this is somehow a problem?

What's the benefit if I may ask? I mean, if the players actively want to play a Mos Eisley motley of PC types....what's the advantage to denying them that?

The player doesn't have to know, but I do; at least enough to provide a consistent background and framework for a) the PC now and b) any other interactions later between any PCs and this society. This adds work that I didn't think I'd have to do, never mind that work is to create a society I might not have even wanted in the world.

I'm saying you work out the necessities together. Not sure how this is work you didn't need to do.....just don't spend time prepping something else. Swap this for that.

Where once their scarcity is realized, "What hapened to the Drow?" is to me a far better mystery and something I can mine for a whole string of adventures should interest turn that way.

Yes, this is literally what I was describing when I said that any mystery can only come about once the concept is introduced.

If I'm designing a part of the game world and I want to preserve a sense of mystery for the other players then the only person who will be told anything about what I'm designing is the DM. I would expect the same of the other players in order to preserve the mystery for me; and major contradictions could be as basic as where I've put a plot-significant mountain range on the map is the same place as someone else wants to put a plot-significant large open ocean; and as soon as we each have to defend our placement as plot-significant we've given info to other players that only the DM should have.

What mystery are you talking about? These hypotheticals become difficult to address. I have literally done what we're talking about and the problems you're describing were not an issue.

If you do this as a group, then where a mountain and where an ocean go can be discussed and agreed upon. No conflict at all, especially if the whole misplaced need for secrecy is abandoned.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Characters are a lot easier to conceive than settings, generally speaking.

Right. So much easier to conceive a player coming to a game with a fully formed character compared to a GM coming with a fully formed setting.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I wonder if the degree of importance of non-humans is related to the literature/video games/movies each person likes. For the humans only among those I like are the Black Company, Dread Empire, Black Cauldron, Conan, and King Arthur are pretty much all human and Fafhrd&Mouser and Dying Earth seem pretty close. Tolkien is obviously demi-human focussed and Percy Jackson and the related series add a few more among the humans and demi-gods. The Garrett Chronicles on the other hand are very not mostly human. So a human world feels just fine as fantasy to me. One with dragon born still feels strange to me though.

Honestly, I very much prefer humans. I don't think that different fantasy races really seem all that much different from humans. They just tend to have monolithic traits that define them, and then beyond that, they're pretty much human. I'm perfectly fine playing and running human only games.

But that preference is mine, and I don't want to force it on my players. D&D offers a variety of things to play, so let there be variety. If I was writing a novel, then I'd probably eschew fantasy races. Or at least, I'd eschew the standard ones in favor of something a bit more original or different.

 

[Greg K]

What's the benefit if I may ask? I mean, if the players actively want to play a Mos Eisley motley of PC types....what's the advantage to denying them that?

For myself, I have no interest in running it as a DM. If another DM was running it, I would have no interest, politely turn down participating, and spend time doing something I would enjoy.

 

[Older Beholder]

I agree with the original post that there are plenty of ways to let a player play something that might not necessarily belong in a campaign without it breaking. Of course there will always be examples of things that won’t work, it all comes down to communication between the DM and players.

Personally, I like a setting with plenty of options. It was always part of the appeal of Planescape (and to a lesser extent Spelljammer), that you could pick anything you wanted without it being too much of an issue. Why confine yourself to a kitchen sink when you have an entire bathtub, or more accurately, a bunch of kitchen sinks to choose from?

I also enjoy working new races, monsters, etc., into my home brew setting. Part of the fun of world building for me is expanding and adapting it to new ideas and adding more and more to it over time.

 

[Lanefan]

Rogueis more than Dex
Where is Sneak attack? Cunning Action. Dagger Specialization? Thieves Tools?

Those are all things that come with one's class, not species.

Give those powers to a species carte blanche and you've just made the Rogue class redundant for anyone else; and I think the days of species-as-class have long passed us by.

Okay ifyou like some of the tamest fantasy special abilites in the media.

No horns. No Claws. Fire Breath. Tendrils. X ray vision. Echolocation. Water breathing.

And an ordinary Human is balanced against all this how, again? (and I usually don't care much about balance; this is over the top even for me)

Not actually big. Not bonuses due to high or super strength. no culture of bigness.

Pretty easy to just give Part-Orcs a strength bonus and have done with it.

That's why most fantasy video games and board games cut many of these races to add more fantastical ones like Draneri, Qunori, Minotaurs, Goblins, Lizardmen, Vampires, etc

Board games don't have to worry much about long-term balance as play in a board game is almost invariably one-and-done; there's no ongoing play, and the different roles/characters/etc. can be redistributed every time.

Video games should worry about this stuff but I'm in no position to say whether they do or not.

 

[Lanefan]

And you think that if you allow a few things, then it opens the floodgates for all kinds of other things? And this is somehow a problem?

What's the benefit if I may ask? I mean, if the players actively want to play a Mos Eisley motley of PC types....what's the advantage to denying them that?

For one thing, it pushes the bounds of credulity that species who in theory don't get along very well* are going to be able to adventure together without some PvP arising. Which is in fact fine with me, they can slaughter each other if that's what they want to do, but some here seem to frown on it.

For another, most cultures/realms in my setting are, though not completely mono-racial, heavily skewed toward one species. There's very few truly cosmopolitan centres - a few big cities, mainly, and that's it - meaning that in a party such as you propose at least some of the characters are going to be met with suspicion (if not outright hostility) pretty much wherever they go. If that's what the players want then fine, but my experience both as player and DM is that this can get tiresome pretty fast.

* - yes there's baked-in underlying distrust/dislike between certain species; sure your PC Dwarf might like Elves but taking an Elf into a Dwarven city is asking for trouble with a capital T.

I'm saying you work out the necessities together. Not sure how this is work you didn't need to do.....just don't spend time prepping something else. Swap this for that.

Keep in mind that by the time players get involved in any aspect of anything I've already spent maybe a year in setting prep. There's no point asking potential players anything before I start because for all I know they won't be interested (or won't be in town!) a year later when I'm finished.

What mystery are you talking about? These hypotheticals become difficult to address. I have literally done what we're talking about and the problems you're describing were not an issue.

The exploration mystery. What's over that hill? What's across that ocean, or do you fall off the edge of the world out there? Where does this road lead?

There's no exploration involved in finding the Caves of Evil if someone already knows where they are because that player put them on the map.

If you do this as a group, then where a mountain and where an ocean go can be discussed and agreed upon. No conflict at all, especially if the whole misplaced need for secrecy is abandoned.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that geographical exploration and discovery aren't big things in your game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

For one thing, it pushes the bounds of credulity that species who in theory don't get along very well* are going to be able to adventure together without some PvP arising. Which is in fact fine with me, they can slaughter each other if that's what they want to do, but some here seem to frown on it.

What does the species matter in that regard? Regular humans are just as good at hating one another as dwarves and elves, or any other fantasy race.

For another, most cultures/realms in my setting are, though not completely mono-racial, heavily skewed toward one species. There's very few truly cosmopolitan centres - a few big cities, mainly, and that's it - meaning that in a party such as you propose at least some of the characters are going to be met with suspicion (if not outright hostility) pretty much wherever they go. If that's what the players want then fine, but my experience both as player and DM is that this can get tiresome pretty fast.

* - yes there's baked-in underlying distrust/dislike between certain species; sure your PC Dwarf might like Elves but taking an Elf into a Dwarven city is asking for trouble with a capital T.

But that’s your decision to make it so, no?

Let me reiterate before going on; if you and your players enjoy this and no one has any complaints, then that’s awesome and you should absolutely keep doing what you’re doing.

But let’s say someone had an issue with this. Let’s say the players wanted to play a variety of PC races. Is their desire more important than some kind of setting fidelity?

When someone asks the player to make some kind of concession to “fit the setting”…allowing Goliath stats but reskinning to large tribal humans as was mentioned earlier in the thread….isn’t itjust as valid to instead ask the GM to make concessions? “Hey, loosen up on the racial restrictions” or maybe “how about this collection of freaks is the campaign concept”. GMs are supposed to be creative…some constraint or input from other sources would seem to be the kind of prompt to encourage the imagination.

Keep in mind that by the time players get involved in any aspect of anything I've already spent maybe a year in setting prep. There's no point asking potential players anything before I start because for all I know they won't be interested (or won't be in town!) a year later when I'm finished.

Or you could just cut out that year long build up.

That may be a lot to ask. I know a lot of GMs truly enjoy that solo creative endeavor. I don’t know if many place the importance of that above the group’s enjoyment, or if some who do that even realize they do.

You kind of described the is element as work that you just want to get done, so I don’t know if this applies to you at all. But if you see this aspect of GMing as simply work to be done, then I don’t understand why you’re so resistant to any approach that would help mitigate that work.

The exploration mystery. What's over that hill? What's across that ocean, or do you fall off the edge of the world out there? Where does this road lead?

There's no exploration involved in finding the Caves of Evil if someone already knows where they are because that player put them on the map.

Sure there can be. Just because a player has an idea and the GM or group find it interesting and decide to use it doesn't mean they know every detail about it. Or when and how it may come up in the game.

I’ll say that I prefer characters who seem to actually exist in the world. Who know things and have heard things and have a base of knowledge. Much as people in the real world have. And people in the real world are surprised all the time. They discover things all the time.

You used the phrase “get tired real fast” earlier; doesn’t the idea of a fresh group of adventurers who only know about their immediate area and who go out into the world wide-eyed and amazed at everything….doesn’t that get old too?

going to go out on a limb and guess that geographical exploration and discovery aren't big things in your game.

You got it. I definitely want there to be discovery in my games, and there is, but it’s not usually of the “oh look, a mountain” sort.